Roseanne Barr seeks Green Party presidential spot

---------------------------------------
Tuesday, May 15, 2012 (SF Chronicle)
Roseanne Barr seeks Green Party presidential spot
<a class="email fn" href="mailto:[email protected]">Joe Garofoli</a>

  The surreal moment at the Green Party's recent presidential debate in San
Francisco came just after it ended, when candidate Roseanne Barr - yes,
that Roseanne Barr - got campaign advice from punk pioneer and previous
Green Oval Office candidate Jello Biafra.
  He urged Barr to "use your humor."
  Barr, as famous for her groundbreaking 1980s sitcom "Roseanne" as for the
tabloids' documentation of her plastic surgery history, has been playing
it straight - at least lately. But she is carrying a serious message for
the party faithful searching for a way to grow.
  So in deference to the Greens' anti-death-penalty stance, the wealthy TV
comedian said she would stop joking about sending billionaires "to the
guillotine." And she's played down an earlier shtick where she said she
was simultaneously running to be prime minister of Israel. Or how Willie
Nelson turned down her invitation to be her vice president because "he's
starting his own party."
  Perhaps more shocking is that in her blunt manner, Barr is addressing the
Nader in the room for liberals who may agree with the Greens' liberal
platform but fear that voting for the party's candidates could elect
Republican Mitt Romney. It's the lingering residue of the 2000
presidential race, in which many Democrats believe that Green
Party-nominee Ralph Nader's 2.7 percent of the vote delivered the
presidency to Republican George W. Bush. Registration proposal
  Barr is telling conflicted liberals that if they're going to vote for
President Obama, at least register as a Green Party member because the
exodus will shock the Democrats.
  "For those people," Barr told an audience Saturday night that didn't quite
fill the 480-seat Victoria Theatre in the Mission District, "if they could
just leave the Democratic Party and register as Greens, they could still
vote for Obama but it would be sending the Democratic Party itself a
message it needs to hear."
  The audience cheered.
  While that's not the official stance of the Green Party, among those
agreeing was Barr's opponent, Jill Stein, a Harvard-trained physician and
environmental health expert who has won the vast majority of Green
delegates committed thus far and all of the primaries.
  "A lot of people have been afraid to stand up as Greens" because of "a
fear campaign that has been drummed into the American people" since 2000,
Stein said. "What has come of this politics of fear? The politics of fear
has brought us everything we were afraid of. Silence is not an effective
political strategy."
  A dozen years after Nader put Greens on the national map, the party is
struggling with how to grow. There is a lower percentage of Green Party
members in California than in 2000 - still less than 1 percent of the
state's registered voters. It's barely above that in uber-liberal San
Francisco, Alameda and Marin counties.
  While 133 Greens hold elective office nationwide, the highest-ranking
party member in the United States is Richmond Mayor Gayle McLaughlin.
  As Biafra, a Green activist who now is more of a spoken-word artist, asked
Saturday, "Should there be a Green Party candidate for president at all,
when the only momentum this party has is for local offices, where we win
from time to time?" 3 candidates on ballot
  There will be three Green presidential candidates on California's June 5
primary ballot (San Diego County air quality inspector Kent Mesplay did
not attend Saturday's event), and Stein and Barr acknowledge that they
have virtually no differences over policy. Barr spent most of the debate
nodding and applauding as Stein enunciated in Clintonian detail a platform
that could appeal to the most liberal Democrats.
  They want single-payer health care; an end to involvement in foreign wars;
a forgiving of all student loan debt; an end to the Keystone pipeline plan
and a ban on hydraulic fracturing for oil, or fracking; heavy federal
investment in a program to create 25 million green jobs; and the
legalization and taxing of marijuana.
  Barr, who told party leaders she would "barnstorm American living rooms"
in her Green Party questionnaire, is seen as a way for the party to appeal
to working-class voters.
  "Greens have been known to be a little bit wonky," said national party
spokesman Scott McLarty. "Candidates will hand a voter a sheet with their
entire policy positions on it."
  Barr moved several people in Saturday's audience when she teared up
talking about her modest roots.
  There is little mention that Barr, who spends most of her time on a $1.7
million, 46-acre macadamia nut farm in Hawaii, is among the wealthiest of
Americans. She's done little in-person "barnstorming" outside of a
near-constant stream of Twitter postings. She told The Chronicle that
airplane travel makes her sick. One-woman show
  Despite her Twitter zeal, the policy positions on her website are
skeletal.
  "I'm doing this all myself, dude," Barr told The Chronicle. "I need some
help."
  Yet she seemed unwilling to spend more to get more help. She bristled when
asked why she has only raised $31,500 for her campaign - $25,000 of which
was a loan out of her own pocket, according to federal campaign finance
reports. She prefers social media for spreading her message as opposed to
giving more money to TV execs through campaign advertising.
  "It takes $1 billion to lose an election," Barr said. "And I can prove you
can do that for far cheaper." Green platform
  Where the Green Party stands on issues:
  -- Supports single-payer health care.
  -- Backs forgiveness of all student loan debt.
  -- Opposes Keystone XL pipeline plan; supports ban on hydraulic fracturing
for oil, or fracking.
  -- Backs federal investment in programs to create 25 million green jobs.
  -- Supports legalization and taxation of marijuana.Source: Green Party Joe
Garofoli is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Twitter: @joegarofoli.
[email protected]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2012 SF Chronicle